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UPDATED: Video: Watch the Felix Baumgartner supersonic skydive

It's not often you get to see a skydive from more than 120,000ft in the air, so why not watch Felix Baumgartner do just that?

14 October 2012/11:52BST

Austrian BASE jumper and all-round nutter Felix Baumgartner will be replacing the heights of skyscrapers with somewhere so high you need oxygen to breathe and a suit and helmet that can keep you warm in temperatures of -68 degrees Celsius.

Just after lunchtime today, Baumgartner will begin climbing to an altitude of 36.5km, which is about 120,000ft, in a specially made helium balloon and capsule. Baumgartner will then probably say something memorable before jumping towards earth.

Besides hoping to beat US Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger's world record skydiving height of 102,800 feet set more than 50 years ago, Baumgartner hopes to break the speed barrier, a feat that has never been officially achieved without aid. Nobody's really quite sure what will happen to his body as he accelerates to more than 690mph and then back down to a subsonic speed as his parachute is deployed.

The stunt will be aired with a 20-second time delay in case something goes wrong – but a measly 20 seconds is nothing when you think how astonishing it will be to see a man jump out a balloon above the earth. And we imagine the two-and-a-half hour ascent before the ten-minute drop will be pretty special, too.

UPDATE 1: At the moment the mission has been put on hold until 14:30pm GMT at the earliest. While it's nice and calm on the ground, wind speed at 700ft (roughly the height at the top of the balloon) is hitting the high teens, which, according to a spokesman, could cause the capsule to bounce along the ground.

UPDATE 2: According to the video, we'll be seeing more news very soon. We've caught glimpses of the balloon being fettled with so hopefully it will be all systems go very soon.

UPDATE 3: It all begins at 5pm GMT.

UPDATE 4: Following Tuesday's aborted mission, Baumgartner is expected to attempt his skydive at around 1pm today!